“The backbone of everything I do”: Pete Townshend’s thoughts on the basic A chord
Every cowboy needs a horse, every pirate needs a ship, and every guitarist needs an arsenal of chords. Some players opt for long, complex, and impossibly difficult finger-picking riffs within the guitar world, while others prefer strong, simple chords to get their message across. The Who’s Pete Townshend was most often in the latter camp, pioneering an aggressive yet relatively simple playing style that would go on to define the British rock and roll movement of the swinging 1960s.
Devoting himself to the mastery of the six-string from a very early age, Townshend’s early life was dominated by an interest in music. When he saw the Rock Around the Clock film as a child, the future Who songwriter was hooked on the rebellious sounds of rock and roll. Quickly, the guitar revealed itself as a gateway into this vibrant world of music and songwriting, and Townshend spent countless hours figuring out his own way around the fretboard.
When The Who rose to the forefront of London’s mod rock scene during the mid-1960s, Townshend quickly became one of the most iconic guitarists in the land. Famed for his anarchic playing style, windmill strumming, and tendency to destroy his instrument and amplifiers at the end of every performance, the world had never seen another guitarist quite like Pete Townshend. At the heart of his enigmatic style, however, were some fairly simplistic chord progressions.
That was part of The Who’s appeal, after all: they were no different to the kids attending their shows. Far from being the unattainable rock stars that they had grown up listening to, The Who showed many young musicians during the 1960s that it was possible for anybody to create groundbreaking rock records. It makes sense, therefore, that Townshend’s guitar playing was rarely overly complex, usually built around simple chords and strumming styles – albeit tarted up with distortion, production techniques, and his grandiose stage persona.
Speaking to this unsuspecting simplicity, one of Townshend’s key weapons has always been the humble A chord. “There’s only one chord I couldn’t like without, and that’s the basic A chord you hear in the beginning of ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’,” he once revealed. Expanding on his technique, the guitarist shared, “I play all six strings but with no C#. So it’s (from low to high string) an E, A, E, A, E, A.”
“That chord is, in a sense, the backbone of everything I do,” Townshend said, ever the sensationalist. Of course, one chord is not enough to generate as gifted a discography as The Who boasts, and the popularity of the A chord is “followed closely by G, followed closely by D, and back to the A,” in the mind of Townshend.
As the guitarist affirmed, the A chord is perhaps most prevalent in The Who’s 1971 single ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, which quickly became one of their defining tracks. Townshend’s beloved chord kicks off the entire track, giving the opening a sense of power and importance, which sets the tone for the rest of the single. Of course, it is not the only Who track to employ the A chord, but the memorable nature of its place in ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ probably makes the chord stand out in the mind of the songwriter.
Townshend is living proof that you do not need to be able to finger-pick overly complex solos or bore yourself to death learning scales for years. While he did spend a considerable amount of time getting to know the intricacies of the guitar, the vast appeal of The Who’s work is often derived from its simplicity and the power that goes along with that simplicity.
